Oakland Agrees to $4.5 Million Settlement For Wounded Occupy Protester

Scott Olsen — the Marine Corps veteran who suffered permanent brain damage after being shot in the head with a lead-filled beanbag by an Oakland Police Department officer during the 2011 Occupy protests — has agreed to a $4.5 million legal settlement with the City of Oakland.

The settlement is the third largest that Oakland has paid in an OPD-related lawsuit in the last 24 years.

The Oakland City Attorney’s office spent at least $42,020 on outside council for the Olsen case. (Hiring outside council to assist with major lawsuits is a common practice.) Oakland will pay $1.8 million of the settlement. The city’s insurance carrier paying the remaining balance.

The Oakland City Council, which has final approval of all legal settlements over $5,000, is expected to approve the deal.

Olsen’s lawsuit was one of several filed against the city following the police department’s disorganized and violent reaction to the Occupy Oakland protests. In 2012, consultants hired by the city to review that response slammed the OPD for, among other things, its officers’ disregard for the department’s own use of force policies.